


The Story

by amandaj



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marauders - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, Original Character(s), Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29363847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaj/pseuds/amandaj
Summary: As Harry Potter gets older, his aunt makes sure he never forgets about his parents or his uncles.  To ensure this, she tells him bedtime stories based around Messrs.  Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs.Loosely based on the song The Story by Conan Gray
Relationships: Jily - Relationship, wolfstar - Relationship
Kudos: 2





	1. A Boy and A Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry loves to hear his aunt tell him bedtime stories; Lucy Potter never turns down an opportunity to tell him about his parents or any of his uncles from when they were at Hogwarts.

“Aunt Lucy, Aunt Lucy!” Harry called out from his bedroom, his large, round glasses making his eyes look much wider than they already were.

Lucy bound up the stairs quickly from her spot on the loveseat in the living room, smiling softly down at the seven-year-old boy in his pale blue pajama set. 

“Are you all ready for bed, then?” she asked, her hands resting on her hips as she looked down at the young boy. 

Her nephew shook his head quickly, squeezing his stuffed hippogriff against his chest as he looked up at her with pleading eyes. “Can we play for a little longer? Me and Witherwings wanted you to play hide and seek with us!” Harry protested, the thick black glasses identical to his father’s sliding down the bridge of his nose as he spoke.

“ _Witherwings and I_ ,” she corrected him, shaking her head softly at his proposal before kneeling down to his height. “As much fun as that would be, you have to go to bed, bubs. We’re going to visit Uncle Moony tomorrow, so we have to get up early so we can see him,” she reminded him, sighing softly as he frowned up at her. 

He folded his arms across his chest, his stuffed creature tucked under his arm as he tried to silently persuade his godmother with his infamous puppy dog eyes. “Just one game, Aunt Lucy? Pretty please?” he begged, going so far as to sticking his bottom lip out pleadingly. 

However, Lucy shook her head yet again. “Sorry, Harry,” she said, leaning around the boy and pulling back the maroon covers and sheets on his bed. “But I’m sure Uncle Moony would love to play hide and seek with us tomorrow,” she added, picking up her young godson and setting him in his bed. 

At the idea of playing with his favorite uncle in what would now be a few mere hours, his face lit up brightly as he pulled the comforter over his short legs and torso. “Can you at least read me a bedtime story?” he asked, tucking in the grey hippogriff under the covers alongside himself.

Lucy gave him a soft smile, moving up to sit on the edge of the double bed covered in Gryffindor Quidditch sheets and blankets. He had had this set when he first moved from a crib into a real bed, and to this day they were his favorite sheets to sleep with.

“How about I tell you a story instead?” she asked, smiling a little bit as he grinned brightly at her suggestion and nodded quickly.

“Alright then,” she said, pushing some of his short hair out of his face as she spoke. “Let me tell you a story… about a boy and a girl,” she started, grinning a bit when her curious nephew interrupted her. 

“What were their names?” he inquired, tilting his head slightly to the side as he talked.

Lucy just smiled softly and patiently at his question, pretending to think for a moment before looking back down at Harry. “James and Lily,” she told him, grinning as the young boy smiled brightly. 

“They’re my favorite!” he exclaimed, squeezing his small fist down on one of his hippogriff’s plush wings. 

Every since Lucy Potter had gained custody of her nephew and godson when he was barely a year old, she always did her best to tell him stories of his parents; she wanted to make sure he would never forget them even if he didn’t fully comprehend that the main characters in her dramatic retellings were her late brother and sister-in-law. As far as Harry knew and understood, James and Lily were some of his aunt's good friends from her seven years at Hogwarts. One day, though, when he would be old enough to really understand what had happened in Godric’s Hollow on Halloween night in 1981, she would explain to him how important James and Lily really were, not just to her, but to him as well.

“I’ve got to warn you, though: it’s kind of short and kind of boring -” she started, smiling yet again as her nephew giggled at her words. “-But the end is a whirl.”

“You say that every time!” Harry said between short fits of uncontrollable laughter, holding tightly onto his stuffed creature as he looked up to his godmother expectantly. 

She rolled her eyes in a playful and almost mocking way, placing her hands on her hips. “Can I continue with the story now?” she teased, grinning when the young boy nodded quickly up to her with bright eyes. 

“Thanks, bubs,” she said, ruffling up his hair slightly before leaning back into her sitting position. “

“This story starts in my sixth year at Hogwarts, a few weeks after we had come back from Christmas break…”

-x-x-x-

“Merlin, James, slow down! You’re gonna kill us!” Lucy shouted over the cold, whipping wind blowing through her hair, squeezing tightly onto her brother’s middle as she ignored his roaring laughter.

“Come on, Lu, lighten up!” he called out to her over his shoulder, though he slowly began to pull the front of his Firebolt broomstick upwards and carefully landing onto the frosted over grassy courtyard.

“You alright there, Little Prongs? You look a little sick,” Sirius asked with a mischievous grin, which only earned him a middle finger from the youngest Potter twin. 

“I told you to stop calling me that!” she frowned, scuttering off the freshly polished broom and running her fingers back through her now-knotted hair. “And I’m fine. But I am _never_ getting on a broom with my brother ever again.”

“Awe, what’s wrong? Is someone afraid of flying?” James asked her teasingly, nudging his slightly younger sister’s arm playfully. 

“No! I’m afraid of flying with _you_ ,” she protested, folding her arms across her chest. “You don’t always have to fly as if you’ve just seen the Snitch, you know,” she reminded him.

“Sorry you can’t handle my flying, Lu,” he joked, winking down playfully at his twin before he suddenly froze up. None of the Marauders, nor his sister, needed to ask what had just happened. 

“How-”

“Your hair looks fine, your tie is perfectly crooked, and I’m positive you don’t need to worry about how your breath smells,” Remus assured him, not looking up from his worn-down copy of Dark Arts Defense. James frowned at his final answer but nodded nonetheless, pushing his fingers back through his curls despite what Remus had just said before leaning around his friends and sister with a grin. 

“Evans!” he called out, waving a bit to the red-headed Gryffindor girl headed their way. She was dressed much more casually than the average Hogwarts student - she was sporting a pair of cuffed mom jeans and a long-sleeved red shirt with the golden Gryffindor crest embossed on the front of it, covered in a large jean jacket. Usually, the second her classes ended, Lily Evans would switch from her perfect Prefect robes and into her much more comfortable Muggle clothes.

Lily looked away from her conversation with Marlene McKinnon at the sound of her last name ringing throughout the spacious courtyard. Surprisingly, she smiled when she had spotted James. Lucy could almost swear she saw her blush, too. 

She said something to Marlene quickly before walking towards the group of four Gryffindor boys and one Slytherin girl. She gave a warm greeting to the five students before turning to the eldest of the Potter twins. “You called, Potter?” she asked, folding her arms across her chest as she spoke, a thin library book pressed between her arms and shirt. 

James nodded softly, almost sheepishly, in response, leaning slightly against his broomstick before he lost balance, seemingly forgetting it wasn’t leaning against a wall, and stumbled slightly. Lily rolled her eyes almost affectionately at the sight of him still trying to show off after six years, while the boys and James’ sister stifled their laughter through not-so-subtle coughs. James hit Sirius and Peter’s arms, since they were the closest to him, before nodding again. 

“Yeah, I just- I just wanted to make sure you were still on for the Three Broomsticks after classes on Friday?” he asked, his voice sounding slightly deeper than it usually was. Lucy and Sirius each raised an eyebrow at James’ question, exchanging a quick look before they both looked to Lily for her response. The only people who appeared unphased by the question were Lily and Remus.

The redhead nodded quickly in response, giving him a bright smile. “Yeah, of course. I get out of potions around three, then I can just meet you in the common room?” she suggested, tilting her head to the side in the same way her son would in a few years, fiddling with a bracelet resting on her wrist. 

“Sure! I-uh, I mean, uh, yeah, sure. That… that sounds perfect, Evans,” James said, grinning nearly from ear-to-ear. He looked like a kid on Christmas morning, like he had just gotten everything he had ever asked for in his entire life. 

Lily smiled a little as well, except she looked like she was holding back more emotions that the eldest Potter had. “Great, I’ll see you then, Potter,” she said, giving a small wave to the rest of the group. “Bye, boys. Bye, Lucy,” she said, nodding to them before heading back towards her fellow Gryffindor friend. 

“See you then, Evans!” James called out after her, grinning happily for a brief moment until one of his friends opened their big mouth. 

“Oh, bye, Evans! I’ll see you Friday, Evans! I would move the entire castle across the ocean just to see you smile, Evans!” Sirius cried out dramatically, pressing a hand to his chest to add a bit of dramatic effect. James shoved him a bit, which only caused Sirius to laugh loudly. 

“Mate, when were you gonna tell us you finally asked her out?” Peter spoke up, standing slightly behind Sirius so as to not get swatted by James again.

“After it happened,” he said bluntly, leaning down and grabbing his broom and pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. “But, I needed an excuse to talk to her, and that was the only thing I could think of, so you lot had to find out a bit sooner.”

“How come Moony got to know before your own sister? Your literal other half? That doesn’t seem very fair,” Lucy frowned, following behind the boys as they started to head inside the castle to wash up before dinner.

“Because the only advice you would give me is threatening to hex me if I didn’t ask her out in twenty-four hours,” James said, glaring playfully back at his sister. “Rem gives actual advice, and actually _helps_.”

“I bet I could give you great advice. Like, you should just take her up to the dorm and f-”

“Shut up, Sirius.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Prongs, sir.”

Remus just rolled his eyes at the two of them, pushing open the large castle doors with the flick of his wand and leading them all towards the Gryffindor tower. “You’ll be fine, just try not to call her ‘Evans’ every five seconds,” he told him, shoving his free hand in the pocket of his cardigan as he walked.

“And you should bring her flowers. _Actual_ flowers, not some quills you transfigured into flowers like you did for Mother’s Day,” Lucy added, giving him a playfully wicked grin before pausing outside the portrait of the Fat Lady with the boys. 

The four of them looked back at her, all of them giving her a gentle parting smile. “We still studying in the library tonight after dinner? If I fail my Divination exam James is gonna make me sleep in the Owlery and I’ll have to take it again next year,” Sirius asked, giving her an almost pleading look as he spoke. 

Lucy chuckled, but nodded gently. “Yeah, just don’t be late again or I’ll curse all of your quills so you can’t write down anything correct,” she warned, smiling a bit as she saw his wide grin.

“You’re the best, Little Prongs.”

“Hey, Sirius?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

-x-x-x-

“That was actually boring this time,” Harry said to his aunt with a small pout, folding his arms across his chest, his hippogriff dangling by his wing from his tiny fist.

Lucy smiled patiently, pushing some hair out of his face again, a small twinge bursting her heart as her eyes briefly landed on his lightning bolt scar in the center of his forehead. “It’s not the end of the story, bug,” she told her nephew, kissing the top of his head gently.

“Is it gonna get better?” he asked, tilting his head to the side so his curly brown hair fell across his forehead once again.

Lucy nodded, folding her hands together in her lap. “I think so. This one has Uncle Padfoot and Uncle Wormtail when they’re in their animagus form,” she told him, which caused the young boy to perk up quickly.

“Really?” he asked. 

Lucy nodded.

“When am I gonna see Uncle Padfoot as a dog again?” he asked her curiously. 

Lucy’s expression dropped a bit, but she smiled again quickly and hoped Harry hadn’t noticed her slight falter. “How about I finish the story, yeah?” she asked. Harry just nodded, seemingly forgetting about his oh-so-important question that occupied his mind moments before and that he hadn’t received a proper answer to it. 

“Alright, so after our last class on that Friday, I met Uncles Padfoot, Moony, and Wormtail down in the Courtyard…”

-x-x-x-

“You’re positive they left already?” Sirius asked Remus, leaning against one of the old stone pillars set up throughout the courtyard.

Remus nodded, seemingly uninterested in the whole situation that was happening at the moment. “Yes, Marlene saw them heading out towards Hogsmeade just before we got here,” he reiterated, playing with the old, slightly unwound sleeves of his cable knit sweater. Sirius and Peter nodded, grinning widely at the slightly mischievous plan that was now officially underway.

“So, you guys know what you have to do, correct?” Peter asked, wringing his hands out a bit as he spoke. Whenever James wasn’t around, Peter stepped up to the occasion to be the one to worry about whether or not every little detail was perfectly in place. Remus would, but he honestly wasn’t as invested in the pranks and plans as the rest of the Marauders. 

“Yes, Pete,” Lucy told him, giving him a reassuring smile. “Rem and I are gonna go in and sit at a booth in the back corner, and you two will be across the street, watching to make sure everything goes right,” she explained to him again. Peter nodded, looking slightly relieved with her answer.

“Well, that is just fantastic! Can you two pretend you’re in love now so it’ll be more convincing you’re on a date? I’ll even let you kiss him to sell it, Little Prongs,” Sirius said, but he put his hands up in surrendered defense when Lucy reached for her wand. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding! Merlin, you’re a tough crowd,” he muttered, nodding towards the other end of the courtyard before he began to lead them all down towards the small village of Hogsmeade. 

Lucy and Remus trailed behind a bit as Sirius and Peter took the lead, morphing into a large black dog and a small rat once they were a little ways off from the school grounds and they were positive no one was around. Wormtail quickly scuttered up onto Padfoot’s back, Remus and Lucy being almost positive his tiny hands were gripping for dear life onto the shaggy black fur as he started running towards Hogsmeade.

“How pissed do you think James is gonna be when he realizes what’s happening?” Lucy asked Remus curiously, glancing up at the much taller boy as she spoke. He simply shrugged, a small grin prickling at the sides of his mouth. Despite what people usually thought of Remus, that being that he doesn’t like pranks and separates himself from those that the rest of the Marauders pulled, he was almost always up for, or even the mastermind, behind some of their best mischief.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to ram at us as Prongs the second Lily left,” he said, chuckling a bit at the thought of it. Lucy grinned as well, now hoping that that would be the outcome. 

They walked the rest of the short trip in silence, looking around at the different birds or creatures that poked out of the forest as they walked past. Once they got to Hogsmeade, the two of them moved a little closer to each other, and started making as much random small talk as possible. As they checked to make sure a black dog and a rat were across from the Three Broomsticks before they entered, they were talking about the last prank that they had pulled on one Severus Snape. 

“I still can’t believe you managed to mess up his potion that badly. What the hell did you even add to it?” Remus asked, holding the door open for Lucy before leading her off towards the back of the small pub. They passed by James and Lily as they walked past, James glancing up at them with a slight glare for a brief moment before he quickly turned his attention back to his date. Lucy and Remus grinned a little bit, scooting into a booth in the back of the room. 

“I just grabbed some old Aconite from one of Slughorn’s expired ingredients piles. You’d think the Potions Master would notice the difference between different types of plants,” Lucy said smugly, glancing across the room silently to her brother. “He looks like a little kid. What a dork.”

Remus stifled a small chuckle at Lucy’s comment, glancing out the window for a moment. “I’ll go get some butterbeers. Extra ginger on yours, right?” he asked, standing up from his seat. She nodded with a grin, leaning back into the booth as she watched Remus head over towards the bar. 

She kept an eye on her brother and Lily, doing her best to not make it too obvious while also trying not to laugh. James wasn’t acting as he usually was; his posture was as close to perfect as it could get, and he kept playing with the collar of his shirt when he wasn’t talking - he also wasn’t talking as much as he usually did. It was interesting for her to see her brother in this sort of situation. 

Remus came back a few minutes later, setting the glass mugs down on the table before sliding into the booth next to Lucy. “Could you hear anything they’re saying?” she asked him, taking a sip of the foamy, warm drink as she leaned back into the poorly cushioned seat.

He nodded gently, sipping his drink slowly as well before glancing out the window as well. “I think they were talking about Quidditch. It sounded like he was just explaining it a bit more thoroughly to her,” he said with a shrug, folding his arms across his chest. “I’m surprised he isn’t talking more, though. I think he’s gone through two mugs so far,” Remus confessed to her, glancing to one of his best friends for a moment before looking back at Lucy.

Lucy looked around him for a brief moment, and she grinned widely. She noticed the tips of her brother’s ears turning red, and his gaze averting from his date to the large window at the front of the pub. 

“You alright, Potter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Remus and Lucy could hear Lily from their seats, and Lucy was doing her best to hide her face and laughter in the werewolf’s cable knit sweater sleeve. 

“No- I mean, yeah, yeah, I’m good. I just- I saw a dog that reminded me of a dog my sister brought home once,” James said quickly, shaking his head a bit as if to rid his head of the two animals across the cobblestone street watching him and his date intently. 

Remus chuckled softly, doing his best to hide himself behind his mug of butterbeer. “He’s got to know what we’re up to by now,” Lucy whispered up to him through giggles, running her hands back through her hair before looking back to Remus.

“He’d have to be bloody stupid if he didn’t piece it all together by now,” he grinned, folding his arms across his chest proudly. “He’s daft sometimes, but I know he knows what Padfoot and Wormtail look like at this point.”

“That’s fair,” she grinned, taking another sip of her warm drink as they talked. She glanced back over at her brother again, unable to hide her small smile when she noticed how happy he had looked. “Do you think he’s gonna ask her to be his girlfriend by the end of their date or is he going to chicken out and wait three more dates?” Lucy asked curiously, leaning back into her seat a little bit.

Remus simply shrugged, his fingertips tracing over the top of his sweater where she knew a few deep scars were by now. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he at least tried. She might want to wait a little longer, though. I think she just likes taking a lot of things slower and taking her time with it,” he explained to her, tapping his fingertips against the tabletop. “Especially after everything that went down with Snape last year. She’s just… having a hard time with trusting new people, I suppose.”

Lucy nodded understandingly. She really couldn’t blame Lily; her best friend, one of the people she had been closest to in the world, openly said terrible things about Muggleborns, then tried to excuse himself by saying he didn’t mean them towards _her_ specifically.

She didn’t buy it for one second. 

“At least she’s gotten closer with James. She seems to actually like him, now that he’s not such an annoying toe rag,” she grinned, glancing up at the clock on the wall as she noticed the two of them getting up, James offering his hand out to his date before leading her out of the pub. The two noticed the rat hopping off the shaggy black dog, bounding after the two Gryffindors once they were headed down the road towards the castle. 

“I wonder if he ever took my advice and got her flowers,” Lucy thought aloud, finishing off her drink before setting it back down on the table. “Come on, we better make sure a certain dog didn’t get into a territory war with the other strays,” she said with a grin, pulling out a few galleons and setting them on the table before standing up out of the booth. Remus followed after her, wiping a bit of foam from the corner of his mouth with his sweater sleeve. 

He led her through the crowded tables and booths out towards the front door, stopping on the other side of the street to pet the black dog. He stood up after a moment and nodded towards the castle, leading now both Lucy and Padfoot back to Hogwarts. The witch and wizard made small talk once again as they walked at a slower pace, somehow landing on the topic of what animagus Lucy would have been if she decided to go through with the plan with her brother and his friends. 

“I know for a fact I wouldn’t be a doe,” she said, laughing a bit at the thought. “I think I’d probably be like… I don’t know, a snake, or something like that.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re in Slytherin!”

“No! I think I’d be best as a snake. I can sneak around the castle, and how cool would it be to say that I’m a snake?” she defended, the two of them laughing a bit before Peter came running up to them quickly, looking out of breath yet excited. 

“He kissed her!” Peter exclaimed quickly when he had reached the two students and the dog. At this news, however, Padfoot paused, quickly turning back to his human form. His mouth was agape, his face displaying pure shock. 

“ _ **WHAT**_?” he practically yelled. Remus and Lucy were nearly positive anyone back at the castle would have heard him. “Does this mean we’re gonna have a Baby Prongs too?”

“Shut up, Sirius,” Lucy said quickly to the rowdy boy.

“You’re barking,” Remus said, shaking his head a bit. “He would’ve been too scared to kiss her,” he added, continuing to walk alongside the younger Potter and the eldest Black back towards the castle. 

“I’m not! I swear!” Peter protested, following after them quickly. “It was really quick, but I saw it! He walked her up to the stairs to the girls dorm and kissed her!” 

“Come on! Wormtail doesn’t have the capacity to lie! He’d probably cry if he tried to lie to us,” Sirius pointed out, causing Remus to slow down for a minute at the thought. Peter nodded quickly in agreement with Sirius, not taking offense to the slightly passive comment that was just made about him. 

The four of them began walking quickly back towards the school, now very curious about what had just happened. They practically sprinted through the halls and past the portraits, who yelled at them for running in the castle. The three boys practically shouted the password at the Fat Lady and smuggled Lucy in behind them, nearly falling on top of each other as they shuffled into the common room.

Lucky for them, James was in there, standing at the foot of the stairs that led to the boys dormitories. Unluckily for them, he looked… pissed, to say the absolute least.

“What the _bloody hell_ were you guys doing!?” he shouted, his arms folded across his chest. He looked the way you’d expect a disappointed dad to look at you when you messed up. If the four of them weren’t so excited, they probably would’ve felt at least a little guilty. 

“You _**KISSED** _Evans?” the four of them yelled back in unison, causing James to stumble back a bit out of shock. He glanced over to Peter, who cowered behind Remus and Sirius a bit, almost afraid he was going to be grounded. 

“It’s none of your business who I kiss!”

“Oh my God!” Lucy said, shaking her head a bit and laughing. “I can’t believe it! Tell us everything that happened!” she exclaimed, taking her brother by the wrist and dragging her off towards the couch that was closest to the fireplace.

James, unimpressed with his sister’s theatrics, wrung his hand out of her grasp. He rolled his eyes a little bit, but still sat himself down on the couch beside his sister. “Do I really have to talk to _you_ about this, of all people!”

“Yes!” 

James groaned at her answer, folding his arms across his chest but smiling a bit as he thought back to what the day had held for him. “Fine,” he gave in, his face blushing a soft pink color as he thought of where to start. “How much would you guys hate me if I told you she was the one who kissed me?”

-x-x-x-

“And that was their first of many, many more dates,” Lucy explained to Harry, giving him a warm smile as she combed some of his hair out of his face.

He looked up at her with pure wonder and amusement, as if he had heard one of the best stories ever in his entire, albeit short, life. 

“What are they doing?” he asked, tilting his head off to the side a bit. 

Lucy raised a curious eyebrow, resting her hand down on the mattress next to her nephew. “What do you mean, bug?” she asked.

“What do they do now? Are they still together?” he clarified, smoothing over the plush wing of his inanimate best friend. 

Lucy, doing her best to figure out how to delicately word everything to her nephew, gave him a soft, sad smile. “They got married after they left Hogwarts, and they had a very cute, very smart little boy,” she told him, pushing some curls out of his face so she could see her brother again. “But they got very hurt one night, protecting their little boy, and they had to go far away so they could get better.”

“When do you think they’ll come back?”

She felt her stomach sink at the question, sighing a bit as she dropped her hands into her lap once again. “I don’t think they will, bubs. I know that they really, really wish they could, though,” she told him, squeezing his hand gently. 

“I think it’s time for bed… We have to leave to go to Uncle Moony’s pretty early tomorrow,” she said, quickly trying to change the subject. She leaned over and kissed the top of his head gently, giving him one last warm smile. “G’night, B.P.,” she said, winking down at him playfully.

Harry leaned up slightly in his reclined position, pressing a sloppy kiss to his aunt’s nose. “Goodnight, L.P.,” he responded, giving her a big grin as he took off his round glasses and set them on the table next to his bed. 

Lucy got up from the bed and headed towards the door, turning off the light as she glanced back to her godson. “Sleep tight, don’t let the doxies bite,” she told him, grinning as she heard his small laughter ring through the room. She closed the door slowly and sighed, rubbing at her eyes a bit as she headed down the hall to her own bedroom. 

Before she reached the end of the hallway, however, she paused in front of a large framed photo in the middle of a bunch of other small ones. It was of Harry, his parents, Remus, Sirius, and Lucy, all in the house in Godric’s Hollow when they had first moved in. Harry was hardly a year old, oblivious to the chaos occurring around him outside of the protected walls. He was on a small toy broom Sirius had bought for him, zooming around the group of them as he giggled over and over. James kept trying to reach for him, making sure he was alright, while Lily laughed at the ordeal. Sirius grinned brightly at the chaos he had caused, while Lucy and Remus just looked on at the rest of them in amusement. Peter was the one taking the picture, and Lucy felt as if she could almost hear his shrill laughter. She missed those days dearly, when she still had all of her friends, all of her family, around her and laughing with her. 

She traced the frame of the photo with her fingertips as she smiled sadly up at it, wishing silently they could all have seen how great Harry had turned out, how good he was doing, how proud he made her. She sighed quietly again and headed down to her room, freezing for a moment as she felt something on her shoulder. She knew it was nothing, probably a gust of wind through her cracked window or a small fly buzzing past her, but she rested her hand on her shoulder for a moment, silently imagining it was her brother or even Lily, looking down on all of them and just comforting her. She smiled at the thought, before she slipped into her bed and fell asleep, much more quickly than she usually did.


	2. A Boy and a Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When visiting his uncle for his birthday, Harry wants his Uncle Moony to tell him a bedtime story. Remus, of course, doesn't turn down a chance to tell his own stories from Hogwarts.

“Are we almost there?” Harry asked from his small car seat in the back of his aunt’s car, his little legs kicking excitedly as he noticed the familiar houses down the familiar street. 

Lucy looked up at him through the rearview mirror with a small smile, nodding gently at his question. “Almost, bub. Uncle Moony said he was  _ really _ excited to see you when I talked to him on the phone this morning,” she told him, which only caused the little boy's face to light up with glee. 

After a few more moments, Lucy pulled her car into the driveway of a slightly run down cottage, where a tall, skinny man stood on the porch, wrapped in a worn blue cardigan and holding a mug of steaming tea. Lucy got out of the car and got her nephew out of his car seat before setting him on the pavement, grinning widely as she watched him run as fast as he could up to the porch to see his favorite uncle. 

“Uncle Moony!” he yelled out, wrapping his arms around his legs since he was too short to reach his waist. Remus smiled and chuckled a little bit, setting his mug down carefully on the banister surrounding his porch before leaning down and picking up the small boy. 

“Hello, Harry!” he smiled, resting the boy on his hip as Harry wrapped his arms around his uncle’s neck in an attempt to hug the tall man. 

Lucy made her way up to the porch and shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans, smiling a little bit as she watched the two of them lovingly. 

“Guess what?” Harry asked him as he pulled back after a few seconds, grinning up at Remus, flashing his hardly grown-in teeth as he waited for his uncle to guess.

“What?” Remus asked with just as much enthusiasm, picking up his mug and taking a careful sip of his tea while Lucy opened the door for Remus and Harry to finally head inside. 

“Today’s my birthday!” Harry exclaimed with a smile, relishing in the fact that he seemed to know something his oh-so intelligent uncle didn’t. 

“Is that so?” Remus asked, setting Harry down once they were inside and closing the door behind the three of them. “Well, I suppose it’s good luck that I had a present lying around here for a special eight year old, isn’t it?” he smiled, grabbing a large box off the coffee table that had been wrapped perfectly with creased corners and a large bow on top of it, 

Harry smiled and clapped a little bit, which his aunt simply laughed softly at, before sitting down on the couch. “Can I open it?” he asked happily. 

“Of course you can,” he smiled, setting the box between Harry and his aunt. 

Harry didn’t hesitate to tear into the silver wrapping paper once he was given the go-ahead, throwing the paper behind him and handing the bow to his aunt (“Because girls always like bows, Aunt Lucy!”). Once he saw the gift waiting for him beneath the wrapping paper, he practically squealed with joy. 

“It’s a toy broom!” he exclaimed, showing it to his aunt to make sure she could see it as well.

“Wow, Harry! That looks just like the one that the Gryffindor Chasers use,” she told him excitedly, smiling up at Remus who looked relieved that his nephew enjoyed his present. “What do you have to say to Uncle Moony?”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Harry exclaimed, wrapping his arm around his leg yet again to hug him. 

Remus chuckled softly and hugged him back as best as he could, sitting down next to him on the couch. “You’re so very welcome, Harry. How about you and I try to open this and see how it works?” he offered. 

Harry, of course, loved the idea. 

So Remus carefully opened up the box and helped Harry assemble the broom while his aunt made a cup of tea for herself, leaning against the door frame that led from the kitchen to the living room when she heard the small whirring of the broom from the next room. She smiled brightly as she noticed Harry beginning to zoom around the room as quickly as the small broom would allow him, while Remus watched from the couch with a proud grin. 

-x-x-x-

The entire day consisted of Harry flying around on his new broom and his aunt and uncle sitting on the couch, making sure he didn’t fall and catching up from the last time they were able to see each other, with small breaks for lunch and dinner. 

When it got around to eight o’clock, however, Lucy noticed her nephew slowly beginning to get sleepier and sleepier. They had managed to get him to sit still long enough to watch a movie, and now he was leaning tiredly against his uncle’s arm. 

“You tired, bubba?” she asked him quietly, to which he simply nodded slowly. She gave him a small smile before picking him up and setting her in his lap. “We should probably head home soon then, yeah?” she suggested. 

Harry, however, was not a fan of this idea. He immediately frowned and sat up, rubbing at his eyes with tiny fists beneath his glasses. “No! I wanna stay with Uncle Moony,” he pouted, folding his arms across his chest. 

“Uncle Moony has work tomorrow, Harry,” she told her, before Remus shook his head gently. 

“It’s not a problem, Luce. I still have his little bed in the spare room if he wants to stay there,” he offered with a bit of a shrug. She chewed on the inside of her cheek as she looked to him, asking silently if it wouldn’t be too big of a problem. “It’s fine, you’re both probably tired, you don’t need to worry about it,” he assured her.

Lucy sighed and nodded, kissing her nephew’s head softly. “C’mon, bug, we’ll go up and tuck you in,” she said with a small smile, picking her up before she and Remus stood up and made their way back to the spare room. She carefully set him down in the small bed, tucking him in carefully. 

“How’s that, Harry? Do you need anything else?” Remus asked, folding his arms across his chest as he spoke. 

“I need a story before bed, Uncle Moony,” he told him matter-of-factly, which just made him chuckle and nod. 

“Of course, silly me,” he said, though he looked over to Lucy for a brief moment.

“He really likes stories about the Marauders, if you wanted to take over story time for the night,” she told her friend quietly with a grin. Remus just nodded, thinking for a moment before looking down at Harry. 

“Okay, how about a story about Uncle Moony and Uncle Padfoot?” he asked, giving him a small smile. Harry nodded enthusiastically, folding his hands together expectantly as he waited for his story to begin. 

“Alright. Once upon a time -”

“That’s not how you start stories, Uncle Moony.”

Remus raised an eyebrow a bit at Harry, before Lucy whispered to his uncle how to  _ properly _ start stories, according to the eight-year-old. He nodded and chuckled, folding his hands together and resting them in his lap. 

“Sorry, Harry. Let me tell you a story, about a boy and a boy,” he started, Harry’s face lighting up as his uncle got the story properly started this time. “They were best friends with each other...” his uncle started, though his voice trailed off as he decided to leave off a bit, glancing over to Lucy for a moment before back to the young boy. 

“This happened around the middle of my fifth year at Hogwarts, just as it was getting a bit colder outside…”

-x-x-x-

“Hurry up, Sirius! We’re gonna be late to dinner!” Remus heard James calling out from the bottom of the staircase in the common room, the two of them, along with Peter, waiting patiently for their last friend to come downstairs. “Rem has to leave soon, we don’t have time to piss-”

_ “Remus!”  _

_ “Sorry, Luce.” _

“We don’t have time to mess around!” James added, folding his arms across his chest just as Sirius tumbled down the stairs. 

“I’m here, I’m here! I had to fix my hair. It always gets frizzy after potions,” he muttered, tightening his tie around his neck as they headed out of the common room and through the portrait hole. 

“You couldn’t have fixed it earlier?”

“I started an hour ago!” Sirius protested, shoving his hands in the pockets of his robe, pouting a bit as they all headed down the large steps. “What time do you have to leave, Remus?” Sirius asked, quickly changing the subject so he didn’t have to deal with James scolding him. 

Remus shrugged, scratching nervously at the back of his neck. “Right after dinner. It’s getting darker outside a lot sooner than usual. I don’t want to have to worry about it,” he told them, groaning softly as the stairs began to shift beneath them, nearly causing Peter to tumble down them. 

“Fantastic. Just what we needed right now,” he huffed, folding his arms across his chest as he looked down to see where the stairs were turning towards. 

“It’s fine, at least they’re not taking us down to the dungeons like last time,” James joked, doing his best to lighten the mood. Remus glared at him, though, which shut him up rather quickly. 

They all walked down to the Great Hall in relative silence, Remus checking his watch every few moments anxiously until they all sat down at the end of the Gryffindor table. “I only have about an hour before I should leave,” he said quietly to Sirius as he sat next to him, who just nodded and gave him a soft smile.

“I’ll save some food for you for when you get back,” he told him quietly, already beginning to shovel some food into the deep pockets of his robes. 

Remus gave him a grateful smile; though both of them knew it was unlikely he’d be able to stomach any food the next few days, he still appreciated the gesture. 

The Marauders talked loudly and obnoxiously throughout the entire meal, as they usually did, but Remus couldn’t seem to have enough energy to talk. He always worried when it came to the full moon, because he always felt terrible for at least a week following it. Thankfully, they all had gotten the hint after four and a half years not to mention it as much as possible. If there was anything that came close to being as painful as transforming for Remus, it was talking about it.

Then, almost as suddenly as they had arrived, the loud ticking of the clock indicated it was 6 o’clock, which made Remus jump a bit. He looked up to the teacher’s table to see Dumbledore, who gave him a single nod before turning back to his food.

“I should go, guys,” he said softly, slowly standing up from his seat. 

The three boys sent him a chorus of “be careful”s and “goodbye”s as he left, heading out into the corridors where he was met with Madam Pompfrey, who was ready to escort him down to the Whomping Willow.

The walk was always silent, and Remus could practically feel the worry and pity Madam Pompfrey felt for him radiating off of her. Once they reached the tree after the short walk, she quickly froze the branches of the tree for him so he could get in. “Good luck, Mr. Lupin,” she told him with a small smile, to which he only nodded and crawled through the small space, beginning the somewhat short hike up to the Shrieking Shack, as it was so lovely named.

-x-x-x-

“This story isn’t very happy, Uncle Moony,” Harry interjected, as he so loved to do. His uncle simply chuckled, shaking his head a bit. 

“I didn’t think so at first either. But I promise, it does get much better,” he told her, watching as Lucy sat on the other side of the bed. 

Harry looked to his aunt for her input, and she nodded in agreement with Remus. “It’s true; it is pretty sweet at the end. I think you’ll love it, B.P.,” she assured him, pushing some hair out of his face with her sweet smile. 

Harry nodded softly and looked back to his uncle, looking at him with wide, curious eyes. “Do you get hurt in this story, Uncle Moony?” he asked, tilting his head a bit as he looked up to his uncle. 

Remus gave him a sad smile, nodding gently. “Yes, but it wasn’t as bad as usual. And you’re about to understand why,” he assured him, squeezing his nephew’s hand gently before he continued on with his story. 

-x-x-x-

Remus had sat down on the bed in the Shrieking Shack, his leg bouncing up and down on the squeaky floorboards anxiously until he heard a loud crash coming from the tunnel he had emerged from no more than ten minutes before. He pulled his wand out of his pocket quickly when he heard yelling following the crash, but lowered his guard slightly when he heard the familiar voices. 

“Wotcher, Sirius! You’re gonna kill me if you keep falling into me!”

“Pardon me, I’ll make sure to fly through here on my broom next time to avoid all the bloody tree roots.”

Remus huffed out angrily when he realized just who it was, shaking his head a bit when his suspicions were confirmed as his three best friends entered into the small room, all of their faces dusty and dirty from not knowing the path as well as Remus did. 

“What the bloody hell are you three doing here!?” Remus exclaimed, tossing his wand back onto the bed as he looked to the three of them, waiting for some sort of explanation. 

“Lovely to see you too, Remus old boy,” Sirius commented, which only earned a jab to the arm from James. “Ow! Fine, I’ll tell him.

“We have a surprise for you, on this evening of December 6th, 1976, Remus Jonathan Lupin.”

“That’s not my middle name.”

“That’s not important!” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “What’s important is, we can now stay with you during your transformations, and we can help keep you from hurting yourself,” Sirius explained to him, grinning brightly. 

Remus furrowed his eyebrows a bit, folding his arms across his chest as he looked out the window, continually checking to see whether the moon had risen in the sky yet. “You’ve got to be barking mad. Werewolves try to eat  _ people _ . Tell me you at least retained that bit from Defense Against the Dark Arts,” he said, shaking his head a bit and putting his head in his hands. 

“That’s just it, though!” James exclaimed, clapping his hands together out of excitement, grinning brightly. “Padfoot had this great idea a few years back-”

“What the fu-”

_ “REMUS!” _

_ “Sorry, sorry!” _

“What in Merlin’s name is Padfoot?” Remus interrupted quickly.

“Me! I’m Padfoot!” Sirius exclaimed like an excited school child, beaming a bit out of pride at the nickname James had graced him with.

“...Alright.”

“Anyway!” James continued, checking the time on his watch to make sure he had time. “Padfoot remembered learning that werewolves hunt people, and not necessarily animals when they’re transformed, so he figured we should become animals so we can stay with you during the full moons.”

Remus shook his head a bit, folding his arms across his chest. “You can’t transfigure yourselves into animals, we haven’t gotten that far in transfiguration. The only way you could really do it is if-”

“If we became animagi!” Peter cut him off proudly, glancing over at Sirius every few moments, like he was worried he was saying the wrong thing and Sirius would correct him. “Isn’t it a great idea?”

“But…” Remus shook his head again, sitting on the edge of the dusty bed as he thought. “Doesn’t it take like a month to become an animagus? There’s no way you guys could manage that.”

“Oh, but we did, Moony,” Sirius said, glancing out the window as well before he looked to the two friends that had recently joined Remus. “We better show him, the moon’s about to rise,” he told them, before the dark haired boy quickly shrunk down into the form of a black, shaggy haired dog. 

James nodded in agreement, winking over at their taller friend before he quickly shifted into the form of a stag, with the antlers just beginning to reach their full length. Peter, of course, followed in the steps of his two friends, giving an almost apologetic smile to Remus before he quickly shrunk down to the smallest animal of them all - a garden rat.

Remus furrowed his eyebrows together as he looked down at all three of them in slight confusion, shaking his head a bit before groaning. “You couldn’t have told me about this when I had time to yell at the three of you?!” he asked, huffing out a bit before he felt a stinging feeling around his body, like he was being poked with needles all over his skin, which only grew to be more painful every second. 

He watched as his friends slowly backed away as his body felt like it was stretching out, his shoulders hunching forward a bit and hair began to shoot out all over his body. He yelled out in pain as he felt everything about him beginning to change, until moments later it was like he couldn’t even think; all he could register was himself and the distant scent of humans, whether they were the students of Hogwarts or the residents of Hogsmeade he couldn’t tell. 

Though, after a few moments, he fully noticed the three animals in front of him, and felt himself almost going mad at their scents that filled the nostrils of his short snout. Before he had the chance to attack them, however, the dog, which he no longer recognized, barked at him, chasing towards him with the stag and rat following behind quickly. The stag cornered the werewolf back into the corner with his antlers, pinning him against the wall with barely any room to move. 

The wolf howled out and fought against it, but the dog pressed himself against his gray legs, trying to do his best to help the stag as well. Remus tried to claw his way out of the situation he found himself in, but when the stag backed away, he only tumbled forward thanks to the dog pressing his legs to the wall. 

The four of them found themselves in situations like this for the rest of the long, long night. When he fell forward, the dog made its way onto his back to hold him down, and when he got up, the stag pinned him down into the corner once again. In the event that neither of them could get him held down in a spot, the rat would climb all over the werewolf, flicking his tail at him and nipping at his skin as he ran across his furry body. This was able to distract Remus long enough for the stag or dog to get the upper hand and put him back into a position where he couldn’t hurt himself or one of his friends. 

A little past 8:30 in the morning the next day, as they all found themselves exhausted out of breath from their escapade over the past few hours, Remus slowly transformed back into his normal, tall, thin, human self. Once the other three were positive he was back to himself entirely, they shifted back from a dog, a stag, and a garden rat into Sirius Black, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew. 

Remus just laid back against the hardwood floors and groaned out in pain a bit from turning back, looking over his body to only notice a few scratches that littered his body compared to how he usually looked after a full moon. He looked around at his friends who were all looking at him expectantly, never having seen him transform nor how he was immediately after. They were almost afraid to say something, like they were worried they would say the wrong thing to him, before Sirius moved to help Remus sit up carefully, then eventually help him stand up. 

James wrapped Remus’s other arm over his shoulder before they slowly began to lead him out of the Shrieking Shack through the tight tunnel, the walk back eerily silent until they reached the opening, Peter leaning out and tossing a rock onto the root that halted the movements of the tree. They helped Remus out to the spacious grounds of Hogwarts, planning to smuggle him in through one of the back courtyard doors, until they heard a throat clearing the second their feet touched the frosted grass. 

They were faced with Madam Pompfrey, not having considered she would have come out to bring Remus back into the castle. They all swallowed thickly, looking to one another somewhat anxiously. 

“What are you three doing out here with Mr. Lupin? Don’t you have morning classes?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at each of them. 

They all seemed stuck on a good excuse for once. There really was no excuse for what they were doing, besides the truth. 

But they weren’t about to tell her that. 

“We wanted to help him back,” Sirius spoke up quickly as Remus opened his mouth, and all heads turned to him. “It was my idea. I knew he was probably pretty weak and would hate the walk back, so I suggested we leave right before the moon set so we could go help him,” he explained to her. She looked at him skeptically, but just sighed with a small shake of her head. 

“Help him to the Hospital Wing if you’re going to insist. Mr. Potter and Pettigrew, Professor McGonagall is waiting for you in her classroom. Mr. Black, I’m sure Professor Dumbledore would love to hear of your plan,” she said, nodding back towards the castle before leading them inside. 

“You’re an idiot, Padfoot, you know that?” Remus muttered to him with a tired voice, slowly walking inside with his friends. 

“Hey! I told you the nicknames would catch on!” he said with a bright grin, helping him through the front doors and towards the hospital wing. 

“Why Padfoot? And Moony wasn’t very creative you know,” he grumbled, grunting a bit as he sat back onto one of the hospital beds. 

“Have you ever seen dog paws? They have a little padding on them. Hence, Padfoot,” he told him, proud of his new nickname. Remus just rolled his eyes, making himself comfortable in the bed with a sigh. 

“Whatever, go get suspended or whatever Dumbledore’s gonna do to you,” Remus muttered, before he slowly closed his eyes and fell into a deep, long sleep.

A day and a half later, though Remus didn’t realize that, he woke up, though at first he laid there with his eyes closed, not wanting to hurt his eyes with the bright lights that seemed to always be on in the hospital wing. He stayed silent with a few sighs every now and then before he heard one of the most familiar (and at times, annoying) voices to him muttering something about thestrals. He slowly opened his eyes and turned to where he heard the voice, furrowing his eyebrows a bit as he saw Sirius sitting on the bed next to him, working through their book from Care for Magical Creatures. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked groggily, not bothering to sit up at all as Sirius turned his head, revealing a blooming black eye.

He grinned brightly and closed his book promptly, moving out of his bed and into the seat next to him. “Thank God you’re up, I’ve been going mad doing my school work,” he told him, leaning back in his seat as he looked up to his friend. 

“What did you do to your eye?” Remus asked, rubbing his eyes tiredly and slowly with the heels of his hand. 

“Oh, yeah, Madam Pompfrey said James and I couldn’t see you since you were injured, and I asked if I were injured could I go to the Hospital Wing, and when she obviously said yes, I had James punch me in the face. So, here I am,” he said with a grin, folding his arms over his chest proudly. 

Remus rolled his eyes a bit, slowly sitting up and leaning back against his pillows. “You’re an idiot.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Sirius said with a bit of a chuckle.

“Not just about that, but that was stupid,” Remus clarified, shaking his head a little bit. “Why did you think it would be a good idea to make yourselves animagi? I could’ve killed you guys,” he frowned, not even wanting to think about having hurt one of his friends in any sort of way.

“Because you’re my best mate, Rem,” Sirius told him simply with a shrug. “I hate you having to miss a week of classes and be all down for that entire time and not being able to do something about it. I found out about turning into an animagus obviously from Minnie, but it mentioned it in one of our textbooks in second year, so I started trying to figure out how to do it, Prongs and Wormtail figured out what I was doing by Christmas, and wanted in on it too,” he explained to Remus.

“How stupid did you guys make these nicknames?” Remus asked, scoffing a little bit. Sirius just laughed, having figured his friend would be skeptical. 

“We thought they were fun!” he said with a grin, playing with the sleeves of his robes as they talked. “We finally were able to transform two weeks ago. James was first, and then me, then Peter. It was really hard to not tell you what happened, especially since I tell you literally  _ everything _ ,” he chuckled softly, looking up at Remus slightly as he finished. “I’m glad you’re okay, though.”

Remus did his best to hide his small smile, but found himself unable to despite his best efforts. “I can’t believe you managed that,” he finally said, which only seemed to boost Sirius’ ego.

“Neither can I! It took us three years, Peter was ready to give up,” he chuckled a bit, before they fell back into a comfortable silence. 

They stayed that way for a little while, especially when Madam Pompfrey came in to check on Remus and change any bandages he had. When it came time for dinner, Madam Pompfrey, somewhat begrudgingly, was telling Sirius he had to leave. He hopped off the bed and gathered up everything, before Remus grabbed his wrist. Sirius looked back to him, giving him a bit of a smile. “What? Don’t want me to leave so soon?” he teased. 

“Did you get in trouble with Dumbledore?” Remus asked quietly once the Hogwarts nurse was just out of earshot. Sirius shrugged a bit at the question, running a hand back through his long, black hair. 

“Just detention for a bit. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before,” he said with a grin. “But I think I’m gonna be able to work out a way for us to come and “help you back” again. Don’t worry about that, Moony,” he smiled. 

Remus just nodded, looking down at his hand that was still holding onto Sirius. He let go carefully, placing his hand down into his lap. “Thank you. For everything,” he told him quietly, giving his friend a weak smile.

“Anything for my Remus,” Sirius simply said, giving him a small wave before he headed out of the Hospital Wing, turning down the hall to go down to the Great Hall. 

Remus just sat there, grinning like a fool, until he eventually found himself drifting off into another long, well-deserved sleep. 

-x-x-x-

“So that’s why everyone has fun nicknames,” Remus told Harry once he had finished, giving him a small smile. Harry looked up at him gleefully yet tiredly, obviously having thoroughly enjoyed his uncle's story. 

“Will I ever get a fun nickname?” Harry asked curiously in a tired voice, taking off his round glasses and handing them off to his aunt. 

“Well, Uncle Moony and I will have to think of something for you, bug. But for now, I think it’s time for bed,” Lucy said to her nephew, kissing the top of his head as she set his glasses on the nightstand beside his bed for the night.

Harry frowned slightly but nodded, nuzzling under the covers before looking up to his aunt and uncle. “Goodnight, L.P. Goodnight, Uncle Moony,” he said sleepily, yawning between his words as he rested his head on the pillow. 

“Goodnight, B.P.”

“Goodnight, Harry.”

The two of them stood up and quietly made their way out of the room, flicking off the light and closing the door before Lucy looked up at Remus with a bit of a frown. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked him quietly. 

He shook his head quickly, looking down to his feet as they walked back into the living room. “Not really. That’s just…” Remus’s voice trailed off, not entirely sure how to tell Lucy exactly how he felt in those moments he had just poured out to Harry. “That’s when I realized how I actually felt about Sirius. Not just… not just best friends anymore,” he told her honestly, though he said it quietly enough he hoped she didn’t hear.

Lucy gave him a sympathetic smile, wrapping her arms around him and giving him a warm hug. He hugged her back after a brief moment, letting out a heavy sigh. “I miss him too, Moony,” she told him quietly, the two of them standing there like that for a few minutes. 

“Do you think he really did it?” Remus asked her, his voice catching in his throat as he asked the question he constantly asked himself for the past seven years.

Lucy remained silent for a moment, before he pulled away and shook her head. “Something had to have happened that night that only James and Lily know about. I know Sirius almost better than I knew James, and he would’ve rather died than betray them, especially to You-Know-Who,” she told him honestly. Remus nodded softly and looked down at his feet, giving her a weak smile. 

“You take my bed, I’ll sleep out on the couch,” he told her, grabbing a few blankets and pillows from a small closet in the hallway, doing his best to avoid talking about this any more than they already had. 

Lucy frowned a bit, chewing on the inside of her cheek. “Are you sure? I don’t mind sleeping on the couch, Rem.”

He shook his head softly and gave her a small smile, already tossing his pillows and blankets onto the couch. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine,” he said, nodding back towards his room for her to take. She just nodded and gave him a smile, heading back to his room as instructed to.

“Goodnight, Moony.”

“Goodnight, Little Prongs.”

Remus laid back on the couch, looking up at the ceiling with a soft sigh. He liked to pretend it was the night sky over Hogwarts, always seemingly sprinkled with every single known star. He liked to pretend Sirius was laying next to him, pointing out every constellation and star that had been burned into his memory after years of living in the Black house. He liked to pretend everything was much, much more simple than it was now, when he had the people he loved most in the world by his side, and all he had to worry about every day was what was going to be for dinner and if he was going to be dragged into his friends’ pranks every other day. 

Now, he was sat alone, with only two people left, and while they were more than enough, he still ached for the one person he ever truly loved more than anyone else, the one person who could never fail to put a smile on his face. And he had to deal with the fact that he was over 400 kilometers away from him, and he’d never see him again as long as he was alive. 

That was the last thing he thought of before he finally managed to fall asleep. 


	3. Me and My Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While putting together a birthday present for Harry's tenth birthday, Harry finds a picture of his Uncle Padfoot, bringing back his aunt's bedtime stories for the first time in a while.

After the visit to Remus’ house, the bedtime stories seemed to die down. Not on purpose, of course; Harry was getting older and more independent, and it took a lot more than just a story to wind him down for bed. As for Lucy, she found herself having told most of the stories that stood out to her. She still talked about James and Lily, and of course brought up Remus every now and then, but by the time Harry was nine, the bedtime stories had become very few and far between. 

It wasn’t until Lucy was trying to put something together for Harry’s tenth birthday that she found herself thinking of two stories, both of which seemed to center around her second brother and one of her closest friends. 

A week before July 31st of 1990, Lucy was sat down in the living room while Harry was in his own bedroom, probably playing with building blocks or his very worn down stuffed hippogriff that he refused to let go of. She had all of their family photo albums sprawled out across the floor in front of her, wanting to piece together a little book specifically for Harry that he would be able to take to Hogwarts the following year. Most of the photographs she had picked out were of his parents, but of course she had picked out a few group pictures of the Marauders and a picture of Remus and her together. She did her best to leave out two of the Marauders, only because she found that she hadn’t told Harry many stories of the two on their own. 

Lucy jumped a little bit as she heard small feet pattering down the stairs, shoving her present-in-progress underneath the couch before looking up at Harry with a small smile. “Whatchya doing, bug?” she asked, gathering up a few pictures and tucking them away so she wouldn’t ruin his surprise. 

Harry gave her a tired shrug, rubbing at his eyes with his small fists as he made his way over to his aunt. “Witherwings got tired and made me put him to bed; now I’m bored,” he informed his aunt, moving over to her and plopping himself into her lap. Lucy chuckled softly, kissing the top of his head and combing his fingers through her hair. 

“Well, I was just looking at some old pictures of your mom and dad,” she told him, and he immediately reached for the first large book in front of him. He grinned a bit at the picture on the front of his parents dancing around a fountain, and Lucy made a mental note to add that into the book she was compiling for him. 

Harry began to flip through the thick pages haphazardly, his aunt carefully straightening them out so they didn’t get wrinkled. Harry slowly made his way through the pictures, until he tilted his head to the side when he came to a large group picture. He stayed on it for a moment, long enough for Lucy to become curious as to what he was thinking. 

“What’re you thinking?” she asked him quietly, pushing up his round glasses that were slipping down his small nose. He was at a section of a few wedding pictures, some of which were missing since Lucy had already picked them out.

Harry pressed his fingers to the photograph, focusing on two men in tuxedos who were laughing; one had longer, jet black hair with his arm wrapped around James, and the other was a slightly chubbier man who stood beside Remus, who was ruffling up his sandy blond hair. “I don’t know them,” he stated, glancing back up to his aunt. 

Lucy nodded gently, giving him a slightly weak smile. “Well, that man is Uncle Peter, or Uncle Wormtail. This one is Uncle Sirius, or Uncle Padfoot,” she informed him, swallowing thickly at the thought of having to explain where they were to him right now. 

“Oh! Uncle Padfoot turns into a dog!” he exclaimed, nodding gently as he finally understood who he was. Lucy smiled and nodded again, flipping the page to reveal a picture of Sirius and James together on what looked to be their last day at Hogwarts. 

“Is that him again?” Harry asked, turning most of his body around to look up to his aunt. All she did was nod, looking down at the photo with a small smile. “Yeah, it is,” she told him, chewing on the inside of her cheek. 

“Why don’t you ever tell me stories about Uncle Padfoot?” he asked his aunt curiously, still looking up at her as he held firmly onto the scrapbook. 

Lucy was silent for a moment, thinking of a proper response before she shrugged softly. “I guess I just don’t have as many stories about him as I do about your mom and dad,” she told him, her stomach jerking as she knew she was lying. 

One might argue that she was closer to Sirius than James was at some points; she was there for him after the prank and helped him patch it up, and she was the one person Sirius felt that he could always talk to about anything (James, after all, wasn’t exactly known for always taking things seriously). 

“Can you tell me a story about Uncle Padfoot tonight?” he asked, giving her a pleading, wide eyed look that his round glasses only magnified. Sometimes, he reminded Lucy so much of her brother it made her queasy. However, she nodded and gave the boy another weak smile, taking the scrapbook from him and setting it off to the side. 

“Alright, bug. Whatever you want,” she said, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek as he giggled loudly at the sign of affection. She inhaled deeply as she thought, and decided on the first story that came to mind.

“Let me tell you a story… about me and my friend,” she started, but, as usual, was quickly interrupted by her nephew. 

“ _ My friend and I _ ,” he corrected her, giving her a proud grin as he was catching onto her slight grammar lessons she would throw at him occasionally. 

Lucy laughed gently, but nodded nonetheless. “You’re right, I’m sorry,” she said, clearing her throat dramatically before continuing with her story. “About  _ my friend and I _ ,” she corrected, smiling down at her beaming nephew, leaning back against the front of the couch. “His parents were evil, so we made a bet,” she started, pushing some hair out of her face. 

“The first part of the story takes place in our second year at Hogwarts…” 

-x-x-x-

“Hey, Potters! Where are you sitting on the train?” Lucy heard Remus yell to her and James, turning around with her brother to look at the tall, skinny boy as he jogged up to them. 

James, being the more vocal and outgoing one at the time, gave him a shrug. “Wherever you wanna sit, Rem. I’m sure Luce will follow,” he teased his sister, nudging her playfully before she shoved him away. 

Peter scurried up behind them, carrying all of his books in his hands as if he didn’t have any room left in his trunk for them. “I heard we’re gonna have a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher this year!” he exclaimed to his friends, almost jogging to keep up with them since his legs were much shorter than theirs. 

“Who’d you hear that from, Pete? All of the other trustworthy Slytherins who told you that there was a snake running around the castle last year?” Lucy asked him, glancing back at the smaller boy before he noticed Sirius standing over towards the entrance, with a boy who looked exactly like him only shorter and paler, and two adults who were clearly the smaller boys parents. The two adults were saying goodbye to the smaller boy, and Sirius was looking down at his feet, like that was the last place he wanted to be. 

“I think it’s true this time, though! They said they’ve never had the same Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher two years in a row!” Peter defended his answer, the three Gryffindors and the Slytherin all piling into the middle train car as they began their hunt for a compartment for them to share for the next few hours. Luckily, or maybe more coincidentally, the compartment they had the year before where they all met was empty. The boys looked at each other before they shoved past each other to get inside. Lucy followed behind once the three of them were in, glancing out the window for a brief moment and sighing silently as she saw Sirius walking up towards the train. 

It didn’t take long for the dark-haired Gryffindor to join the rest of them, completing their little group in their compartment. He looked much happier than he did a few moments ago, his mouth stretched into a wide smile as he tossed his satchel into the overhead box. The rest of the boys greeted him loudly and happily, James and Remus shoving him back and forth playfully before he sat down between the two of them, facing Lucy and Peter on the opposite set of seats. 

“Sorry I was late, I had to show my brother where to sit,” he excused himself, leaning back into the cushioned seat with a bit of a sigh.

“Your brother? Why didn’t you invite him to sit with us?” Peter asked, and Lucy caught Remus shaking his head quickly but softly, hoping Peter would get the silent hint.

Peter didn’t get the hint. 

“Oh, Reggie would much rather sit with the Slytherins and our cousin Narcissa. He’s hell-bent on getting into Slytherin like the rest of our family, so he wanted to make friends early,” Sirius explained rather quickly, like he just made up and excuse to not talk about his brother at the moment Peter nodded and sunk back into his seat, suddenly feeling bad for having brought it up. 

After that, the train ride felt a bit awkward. The rest of the boys talked and joked around, while Sirius sat back in his seat and just watched. James and Remus had noticed not too long in, and gave each other a knowing, odd glance that Lucy hadn’t seen from her brother before. 

James stood up about two hours into the train ride, clapping his hands together and giving a dramatic sigh. “I could go for a chocolate frog or two, how about you, Rem? Pete?” he asked, looking between the two boys. 

“I could go for some Fizzing Whizbees,” Remus piped up, standing up before nodding towards Peter, who seemed off in his own world, swinging his short legs off the seat. Lucy nudged his arm before he finally looked up, nodding quickly before he stood with the other two boys. 

“Yeah! Yeah, I want some Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans for when we get to the dorm, anyway,” he said. The three boys quickly scurried out of the train car and off to find the trolley full of sweets, leaving it to just be Sirius and Lucy. 

Lucy stayed quiet for a few moments, glancing up to Sirius every now and then. Each time, though, he was just staring blankly down at the floor. She chewed on the inside of her cheek before she stood up and made her way to the other set of seats, sitting down next to him where her brother had sat before. “Do you wanna talk about it?” she asked him in a quiet voice, looking forward as well, almost as if she was too afraid to look at him.

Sirius just sat still, like he didn’t hear her, his gaze fixated on his brand new shoes his parents forced onto him whenever they made their yearly school shopping trip to Diagon Alley. But then, all of a sudden, Lucy felt a sudden weight on her shoulder. She glanced down slightly out of the corner of her eye, and saw a mop of black, messy hair resting on her shoulder. She patted his shoulder gently, hoping it would bring him some sort of comfort. That’s what her mother did to comfort her, at least. 

“I just hate spending the summer at home,” he told her quietly, his gaze moving between the thinly carpeted train floor and the glass door, hoping none of his friends would come in while he felt so vulnerable. 

Lucy just nodded gently, glancing down at him a bit as he spoke. “I saw you with your parents and brother earlier, back at the platform,” she told him, which only evoked a sigh out of him. 

“Reg has always been the favorite. I’ve just been… different, obviously,” he said with a weak laugh, flipping his tie up a bit. “He always followed everything my parents said blindly, I questioned every other thing they did. It’s practically unheard of in our family,” he explained to her, chewing on the inside of his cheek. 

“I mean, I’m pretty different from James, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Yeah, but you’re a good kind of different, and your parents still love you,” he mumbled, which shut Lucy up almost immediately. “They practically hate me. Mum finds a new reason to yell at me or ground me every other day. On her off days, my dad finds a reason to yell at me or ground me. All because I don’t think I was supposed to be in Slytherin and that I shouldn’t just… hate half of the witches and wizards because they don’t have the same blood I do,” he sighed, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes tiredly. 

Lucy frowned a bit, resting her hand on his shoulder still as he gave him a sympathetic smile. “You know you’ll always be welcome at our home,” she told him, to which he only scoffed at. 

“Mum says no one would want to take me in, she’d throw me to the streets if she could,” he said with a bitter chuckle, before swallowing thickly and looking back down at his feet. 

Lucy sat silently for a moment, looking down at her lap as she mulled all of that over. She eventually sat up straight and turned to him, taking her hand off his shoulder so she could hold her pinky out to him. Sirius furrowed his eyebrows a bit as he looked at her, shifting in his seat to face her as well. “What are you-”

“I want you to promise me something, Sirius,” the twelve-year-old said firmly, shutting up the boy quickly. “If it ever gets too bad at home, and if you need somewhere to go, I want you to promise me you’ll run to me and James. You know mom and dad would love to have you, and you’d have a better life,” she said, practically pleading with him. 

Sirius chewed on the inside of his cheek, sighing before he wrapped his pinky around hers, giving her a weak smile. “Alright, Potter. Only since I’m scared you’d drag me over to your house anyway,” he teased, to which she just nudged him playfully. 

“And I will if I have to, I swear on Merlin’s grave,” she said, her voice joking despite how much she genuinely meant it in her heart, holding her right hand up as if she were swearing to it.

Sirius just laughed softly, leaning back in his seat a bit as the three other boys finally filed back into the compartment, Remus taking his old seat as James sat down next to Peter across from the rest of them. 

“Hope we didn’t miss all the fun,” James said, carefully opening his chocolate frog before grinning when he caught sight of the card inside. “Finally! I got Gryffindor!” he exclaimed happily. 

“Don’t worry, you still have a few hours left to catch up to us,” Sirius said, taking the box of Fizzing Whizbees that Remus had grabbed for him, giving him a small smile as a thank you, dumping some of them out into his hand and quickly shoving them into his mouth.

-x-x-x-

Harry looked up at his aunt curiously as she finished the first portion of her story, causing her to chuckle softly. “What? Is it a bad story?” she asked, pushing some of his hair out of his face, which was starting to curl at the ends, reminding her so much of the young boy’s father. 

“I don’t get it,” he told her firmly, leaning against her shoulder slightly as he spoke. “Why do his parents not like him?”

Lucy gave him a sad smile, adjusting the way her nephew sat on her lap so he could look at her. “Uncle Padfoot didn’t like what his parents taught him, so he acted out because of it, trying to be different from his family. His mom and dad didn’t like that too much,” she explained to him. “But, if he wasn’t so different from his family, he wouldn’t have been such good friends with me or any of our other friends,” she added. 

Harry nodded, still looking vaguely confused. “His parents don’t seem very nice.”

“They weren’t,” Lucy confirmed, kissing the top of his head gently. “That’s where the rest of the story happens,” she told him, leaning back slightly against the front of their older, weathering couch. “This happened in the summer between our sixth and seventh year…”

-x-x-x-

It was a warm July night in 1977. Euphemia and Fleamont had gone to bed early, leaving James and Lucy alone in the living room, playing a card game Remus had taught them at some point during their free time for hours and hours, almost until the night had become the early, early morning. 

“Merlin, James, you’re supposed to slap the  _ Jack _ , not the King,” Lucy groaned, shaking her head a bit at her brother. He frowned a bit at his sister’s comment, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back slightly. 

“It’s confusing! You can’t blame me for it,” he huffed out, gathering up all of the cards and beginning to shuffle them again, doing it as carefully as possible to copy the way Remus showed him back in their dorm.

“I most certainly can when it’s in the bloody name!” she argued, shaking her head a bit before glancing up at the grandfather clock pushed against the wall. “I might let it slide if you go and get me some butterbeer,” she said with a grin, tilting her head to the side to feign some sort of innocence to her twin. 

James frowned a bit and sat for a moment, obviously thinking it over before he groaned, setting the deck of cards down on the coffee table. “You’re lucky I’m thirsty, too,” he said, pushing himself up before heading off to the kitchen through their dining room.

“Whatever you say!” she called after him as quietly as she could while he could still hear her, shaking her head a bit as she began to shuffle the cards a bit. 

The cards didn’t stay in her hands long, however, as she heard a large  _ whoosh _ noise and a flash of light coming from the fireplace. Lucy scrambled for her wand and stood up a bit, her hand slightly shaking until the smoke cleared and she saw a boy, looking cold and terrified, slowly making his way into the living room. 

“Sirius, what in Merlin’s name are you doing here?” she asked, tossing her wand onto the couch before making her way over to him.

“Luce! Everything alright in there?” she heard James call from the kitchen. She quickly looked from Sirius to the general direction of the kitchen, chewing on the inside of her cheek.

“I’m good! I just… tripped, that’s all!” she said. She stayed silent for a moment to listen for her brother, but given that there was no response, she assumed he took her excuse, and she turned back to Sirius.

“I, uh… I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Sirius explained to Lucy quietly, running his hands back through his dirty-looking hair as he kept his gaze fixated on the ground in front of him. 

Lucy just nodded, gently guiding him over towards the couch and sitting him down. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked him quietly, continually looking over her shoulder to make sure her brother didn’t walk in on the two of them talking; she knew all too well Sirius hated feeling vulnerable, especially in front of James. He wanted to keep up his tough guy act, even if that meant he had to keep a few things from James now and then. 

“She just… she was too much,” he said silently to her, slumping back into the couch cushions. “I didn’t know what to do, so I just… I used the fire place when they all went to sleep and used the floo network to get here,” he explained to her quickly, his gaze flicking over to the fire he had just stepped out of, worried his mother or father would come bursting through the flames any second. 

Lucy just nodded, wrapping her arm around him so his head rested tiredly against her shoulder. “It’s alright, don’t worry about it. Do you need anything?” she asked him quietly, looking down at him carefully as she spoke.

He shook his head quickly, already looking nervous from his intrusion. “No, no, I just… I think I need a minute,” he told her softly, letting out a heavy sigh. 

So, she gave him the minute he needed, and many more after that. It almost felt like an eternity before he heard a voice from behind them, her head picking up and turning quickly only to face her twin brother, whose focus was stuck on his best friend. 

“Pads! What’re you doing here? I thought you couldn’t visit for another week,” he asked in a rushed voice, moving around the couch and setting down the little bottles of butterbeer on the coffee table before glancing at his sister. “I had to run down and get some from the cellar; mom must’ve forgotten to restock the fridge after last weekend,” he explained quickly, before sitting on the other side of his best friend. 

“I know, I’m sorry, it’s just… I needed to come a little earlier. I’m sorry to just burst in like this but…” his voice cracked and trailed off, his attention turning down to his lap, his expression rivaling that of a kicked puppy. It was only now that Lucy noticed his puffy, red eyes and tear-stained cheeks, which he had been trying to hide from the two of them. 

“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to,” James told him quietly, having realized he hadn’t just snuck away for a sleepover like he usually had done in the past summers. It was something much different than before.

Sirius shook his head quickly, sniffling a bit before letting out a sigh. “No, I just… I didn’t think I’d ever need to do this. I should’ve called ahead, I’m really so-”

“Don’t apologize, Sirius. Please. We’ll work it all out, you don’t need to apologize for something like this,” Lucy insisted, giving him a warm smile that the boy hadn’t seen the likes of since he got off the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9 ¾ at the end of June. 

Sirius just nodded gently, looking down at his hand and twisted a silver ring around his finger. “Mum got really mad at me tonight, and she just… she got out of hand…” Sirius started, focusing on his hand as if this was the last thing he wanted to talk about. “She tried to use the Cruciatus Curse on me at some point. B-but it was my fault, I was being a prick during the dinner party and-”

“It’s not your fault, Padfoot,” James interrupted him, who refused to hear his best friend blame him for something like this. “It doesn’t matter what you did, it’s an unforgivable curse for a reason. There’s not a single excuse for her to have tried that on you,” he told him, wrapping his arm around his friends shoulder to give him a bit of a hug. 

Sirius just nodded quickly and weakly, obviously not agreeing with James at that moment but not in the mood to argue about it, running his hands down his face with a soft sigh.

“What happened at the party?” Lucy asked gently, partly out of curiosity and partly because she wanted to see how ridiculous his mother’s reaction was. Having known Sirius as long as she has, Lucy knew by now that Walburga had the tendency to blow things out of proportion, and Orion usually backed her up; whether it was because he agreed with her or he was afraid of her, Lucy hadn’t quite figured that out yet. 

Sirius took a deep breath and grabbed one of the untouched butterbeers off the table, which had been long forgotten by the twins. “Mum had our Uncle Cygnus and his family over, except ‘Dromeda. Bella and Narcissa brought their husbands, and it was the first time Bella and Rodolphus were there as a married couple, so mum was especially uptight about everything,” Sirius explained, running his hands back through his hair again, his eyes flitting over to the fireplace again. 

“After dinner, we were all just sitting in the parlor and talking, and Reg had left to go get some cigars or something for dad and the other men there, so it was basically just me with Rodolphus and Lucius. Lucius started making comments about… You-Know-Who, and then said something about Muggle-borns. I got mad, partially because it was obviously offensive, and partially because I’ve gotten close with Lily since you guys hung out a lot more this year, so I said something to him, and we had a back and forth, until we both pulled our wands on each other,” Sirius told them, eventually pulling off the ring he had been messing with and tossing it on the table. “Mum walked in at the wrong time, and got reasonably upset, then sent me to my room. When she came up after everyone left, that’s when everything happened. She said the usual: she wished she had a better son, that she should’ve gotten rid of me when I had the chance, a few hexes in between, all that fun stuff…” he said, giving a bitter chuckle as he took a quick drink of the butter beer. 

“Then she added the curse in there, and I realized I had to leave, so I packed my trunk up with what I could and floo’d over here the second they went to bed,” he finished, leaning back into the couch and focusing on the dying fire in front of him, afraid of how his friends would react to all of this. 

The Potter twins didn’t even know how to react at first. Both of them just started at Sirius for a bit, their attention shifting to each other after a few quiet moments. It was almost as if they were having their own quiet conversation, trying to figure out what they should do. 

“I hate when you two do that, you know,” Sirius muttered after a few quiet minutes, taking another long swig of butter beer. He looked between them and gave a weak laugh, shaking his head a bit. “I don’t have to stay here if it’s a problem. I just know how Lyall and Hope can be about me, and I didn’t know how Peter would react, and I remembered you told me that one time that I could always come if something happened at home…” Sirius explained, his voice trailing off as he looked over to Lucy. 

James looked back to his sister curiously before turning back to Sirius quickly. “It’s no problem at all, Sirius. Don’t worry about it,” James said quickly, clapping his hand over his shoulder. Sirius gave him a weak smile, before he leaned into him a bit slowly, until he found his face buried in his friends’ shoulder, his arms wrapped around him in the tightest hug possible, and did his best to hold back any tears. Lucy frowned a bit over to her brother, who wrapped his arms around Sirius as well, before she did the same, resting her head between his shoulder blades. 

At that moment, it was like something inside of him snapped, and he finally let go. His body shook with sobs as he latched onto his two closest friends, his eyes burning as they flooded with salty tears that he had been holding back for sixteen years, tears that he had been too afraid to let out. They all ran down his cheeks as he practically collapsed into a heap between Lucy and James, feeling a weight lift off his shoulders that he hardly noticed was weighing him down anymore. Of course he was frustrated and upset, but at the same time, for the first time in his life, he felt like he had been freed. It was different from when he first got to Hogwarts and was away from his parents for the first time, since he still felt his parents looming presence over him, whether through different letters his parents sent throughout the year, his cousins or brother, or even a portrait of a Black family member somewhere in the castle - now, he felt like he could finally get rid of them, and he’d be able to be his own person, without having to worry subconsciously what his parents were going to do if they ever found out. 

It took a good ten minutes, maybe even more, for him to finally get everything out. The three of them remained in their messy grouping, though, the twins not wanting to move in case Sirius still needed them, and Sirius in desperate need to hold onto them, wanting to keep the closest thing he ever had to a family as close to him as humanly possible.

None of them really knew how long they were sitting there, only that none of them moved, except to shift to be more comfortable every now and then, until they heard two sets of feet slowly making their way down the steps just after the sun had risen in the early morning sky. 

“What’s going on down here?” a deep male voice asked, causing the three of them to sit up straight quickly and turn to face Fleamont and Euphemia Potter.

Sirius, to everyone’s surprise, spoke up for all of them. “I’m sorry for the intrusion, Mr. and Mrs. Potter. I just… had a really rough night and didn’t know what to do except to come here,” he explained, wringing his fingers out in front of him anxiously, like he was worried to have another set of adults be frustrated with him so quickly together. 

James and Lucy, however, weren’t about to let that happen. “It’s our fault,” the two of them said in unison, standing up so they could properly face their parents. 

Euphemia and Fleamont both raised a brow, but said nothing as they waited for their children’s excuse. “I told Sirius a while back he was always welcome if anything bad happened at home,” Lucy explained.

“I made sure he knew where to go and that he could always use the Floo Network if he needed to come here,” James added, almost making it into a competition for who could take more of the blame off of Sirius. 

Mr. and Mrs. Potter looked between the three of them for a moment, and just relaxed. “Good thing I hadn’t started on breakfast before you arrived. Do you like blueberry pancakes, Sirius?” Euphemia asked, leading the rest of the family into the kitchen as she spoke. 

Sirius grinned widely from ear to ear at her response, nodding gently. “They’re my favorite,” he told her, beginning to follow before he stopped. The twins stopped with him, turning to face him almost nervously. Lucy chewed on the inside of his cheek, and James shoved his hands into his pockets as they waited patiently for what Sirius needed to say or do. 

“Thank you,” he said quietly, weakly smiling down at his feet for a moment before looking up to them again. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if I didn’t have you two,” he admitted, folding his arms across his chest. 

The twins just smiled, each of them wrapping an arm around Sirius. “You’re like our brother, Pads. This is your home as much as ours,” James told him. 

Sirius just grinned widely, like those few words had made him the happiest person in the entire world. He wrapped one arm around each of them, before the three of them finally made their way into the kitchen for their first meal as a proper family. 

-x-x-x-

As Lucy finished the story, she looked down at Harry to see him enthralled in the picture of Sirius and his father at the wedding yet again. She smiled softly, combing her fingers through his dark brown hair. 

“Did he always live with you guys after that?” Harry asked, looking up to his aunt after a minute. 

She thought over the question for a minute before nodding gently, giving him a warm smile. “Until we graduated from Hogwarts. Your mum and dad got their own little place, and Uncle Padfoot and I lived with Uncle Remus and Uncle Peter for a few years. Then Uncle Remus had to go do some things for work, and Uncle Peter decided to go and live with his parents again, so it was just me and Uncle Padfoot for a little while, until I got to take care of you,” she said with a warm smile, tapping his nose playfully.

“Why didn’t Uncle Padfoot take care of me with you?” he asked curiously, his head tilting to the side a bit. 

Sometimes Lucy hated how much he looked like his father. 

“Because Uncle Padfoot had to go live somewhere else, and neither of us could go with him,” she explained to him gently, giving him a sad smile. She knew she couldn’t tell him what had really happened to his uncle - not yet, at least. He probably wouldn’t even fully understand if she did tell him.

Harry just nodded, and scrambled up from his seat in his aunt’s lap. Lucy got up as well, checking the time on the grandfather clock pushed into the corner of the living room. “Looks like it’s time for bed, bug,” she told him, holding her hand out for him before she led him up to his bedroom and getting him ready for bed. 

She got him out a pair of pajamas and helped him comb out his hair, before tucking him into his scarlet and gold sheets and making sure he had his favorite stuffed animal right beside him. 

“G’night, B.P.,” she told her nephew once he was fully in bed, taking off his glasses and setting them on the little bedside table. 

“Aunt Lucy?” he asked, sitting up a bit in his bed so he could look at her as best as he could without his glasses. 

She turned back to him with a small smile, folding her arms across her chest as she took a few steps towards him. “What’s up?”

“Do you think we’ll ever get to see Uncle Padfoot again?” he asked, leaning back against his pillows as he spoke. 

Lucy swallowed thickly but did her best to keep her gentle smile presented to her nephew, shaking her head gently. “I don’t think so, bubba,” she told him honestly. 

The boy accepted this answer much better than Lucy had anticipated, before he finally laid back to go to sleep. “I wonder if he’s alright,” he thought aloud, to her, turning to face his aunt quickly. “Goodnight, L.P.”

Lucy smiled again, flicking off the light. “Goodnight, B.P.,” she said again, before slowly closing the door and making her way down to the living room again. 

The biggest scrapbook was still open to the wedding section, where there was a picture of all the boys together, practically hanging off of each other as they laughed at something stupid that one of them probably said. Lucy looked down at the photo fondly, dragging her fingertips across the edge of the photograph before she closed the book with a sigh. “I hope he’s alright,” she breathed out quietly to herself, shaking her head a bit before beginning to clean up the area a bit so she could head to bed.

As Lucy made her way up to her own bedroom, she passed the picture frames that showed all of her friends and family at their happiest moments that hung on the wall. As she looked at a picture of Sirius smiling brightly with her and her brother on their first Christmas together, she didn’t realize that hundreds of kilometers away, he was holding so dearly onto memories just like that one, hoping it wasn’t taken away from him every time the black, ghostly figures passed by his cell. She didn’t know how much hell he went through every day, blaming himself for every little thing that had gone wrong that night, reliving the moment when he found his two best friends in their ruined house in Godric’s Hollow. 

All she knew was she lost her two brothers in one night, and it hurt her more than she could say whenever she saw that picture. She could practically hear the two boys fighting over who got to open the first present, practically seeing them nearly knock over the tree as they wrestled a present between themselves. And it hurt her even more that she’d never experience one of those moments ever again.

Yet she still hoped that he would be okay as she finally got into bed, falling asleep as she wished she could tell him one last time that everything would be okay and one day he’d be able to see his godson again.

Oddly enough, it was that same thought that helped lull him to sleep, miles and miles away.


End file.
